Communication and Involvement

Employee participation concerns the extent to which employees are involved with management in the decision making of the organisation. Gennard, J and Judge, G (2005).  Employee participation can take either a representational or direct form. There are a large number of methods that are increasing employee participation. Some suggestions are boxes – the direct form and involvement of workers directors –the representation form. Whichever methods that are used, the objectives are to increase efficiency and to motivate. [Head Academy Online Accessed 9th May 2011]. This comes from the pluralist approach which allows employees to have some say in decisions as different groups in an organisation have different interests and conflict are more likely to arise. Employees may be interested in increasing their pay and managers / owners will be interested in increasing their profits. Trade unions can help negotiate a way forward.

Employee involvement concentrates on the individual employees and is designed to produce a committed workforce more likely to contribute to the operation of an organisation. By introducing employee involvement, management seeks to gain the consent of the employees to its proposed action, based on commitment rather than control. Gennard, J and Judge, G (2005).  This gives a unitarist approach which shows that all members of the organisation, both management and employees, have the same goals and interests and will work together towards the achievement of a common set of goals. With leadership at the top of an organisation are likely to recruit people who can follow these goals with little conflict. This meaning that Trade Unions have little involvement. Involving employees can include sharing information, consultation, financial participation, quality improvements and the community.

Organisations can involve employees in decision making by having –

-          Team briefings – Having weekly meeting where managers are briefing staff, is a good way to keep staff up-to-date. Also, if any employees have any suggestions on what they think might work, could help the organisation. This way, employees are getting involved in decision making and also giving their own ideas as to what they think might work. As employees are the ones having to deal with the customers, they are more likely to have a better knowledge of what the customers want.

-          Newsletters and Publications – Having weekly newsletters are a good way of keeping staff informed to remind them of what was said at the team briefing and to recognize any decisions that employees have made so other colleagues can see. Also, management can have a section asking employees for their opinion on something and asking them to report back to management if they have any ideas. If their idea is taken on board and put into practice, then the employee could be rewarded with a bonus. This is encouraging employees to get involved and to look at their newsletters.

-          Company videos – Having a video of how another similar company is run, can give some employees an idea of using a similar technique to use in their organisation. This encourages employees to look at their local competition and how they run their organisation.

Many organisations are now using social networking sites, such as Facebook, twitter, MySpace etc, to involve their staff, both existing staff and potential recruits. Organisations are using these sites to gain credibility, adapt employee relationships, building the opportunity for customers to communicate with organisations, and to increase sales and profits. Organisations allow staff to communicate with each other on the social networking site. It allows new recruits to talk to each other and get to know each other before they start working at the organisation. Wetherspoons use Facebook as a way to communicate with potential customers. Customers leave comments and questions and members who work at Wetherspoons can reply to the customer. It also shows customers that the organisation care about their opinion and comments. It allows new recruits to read the comments to get a feel of how the organisation works.

 

Reference –

Gennard, J and Judge, G (2005). Employee Relations. 4^th ed. Essex: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Head academy online http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/hlst/documents/resource_guides/employee_empowerment_perception_and_involvement.pdf [Accessed 9th May 2011]

JD Wetherspoons http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/ [Accessed 9^th May 2011]

Reward

Reward is about how people are rewarded in accordance with their value to an organisation. It is concerned with both financial and non-financial rewards and embraces the philosophies , strategies, policies, plans and processes used by organisations to develop and maintain reward systems (Armstrong, M).

Reward systems consists of financial rewards, both fixed and variable pay, and employee benefits. They also consist of non-financial rewards, including recognition, praise, achievement and responsibility (Armstrong, M).

‘Staff should be recognised for going the extra mile as happy staff are productive staff. They provide great service, which in turns creates higher profits and keeps the customers coming back’ [Focus Plus, Customer Service Monitoring Online Accessed 10^th May]

The purpose of rewarding employees encourages them to perform to their maximum, maintain good quality service, increasing employee commitment and more profits for the organisation. The issues that rise in reward are pay freezes, tax changes, loss of jobs, public sector cuts, and pension deficit. It’s all ok when employees are receiving bonuses as reward but employees and employers don’t consider the damaging issues that could affect the organisation.

I currently work for JDWetherspoons, working as a bas assistant and a waitress. Managers here are very good at rewarding their employees. They currently have a system called – CQSMA – Cleanliness, Quality, Service, Maintenance and Atmosphere. We regularly have mystery shoppers come in and mark us on the above point. If our average over a month is more than 84%, each employee get a 10% bonus of what they earned that month. This means that each employee must keep up the high standards that have been set through the pub. The manager of the pub does praise all employees when good work has been recognised and each team leader on shift praises employees when the managers don’t.  All employees are rewarded and treated the same.

J Stacey Adams Equity Theory calls for a fair balance between an employee’s inputs (hard work, skill level, tolerance, enthusiasm) and a employee’s output (salary, benefits, intangibles such as recognition). The theory finds a fair balance to ensure a strong and productive relationship is achieved with the employees [Time Analyzer Online Accessed 10^th May]. I feel working for JDWetherspoons, encourage fairness between employees in outs and outputs.

Many Chief Executives still receives large bonuses even when the organisation has underperformed. I believe that they shouldn’t receive large bonuses. If the organisation are underperforming and having to send staff home when its quiet, why should chief executives still get large bonuses? If the organisation is underperforming then it shouldn’t just be the employees that take the stain. I do however appreciate that if the chief executives don’t get paid then they aren’t going to work, unpaid. They do have much more responsibility to deal with than employees who just work for the organisation. From this then I feel Chief Executives should get a small bonus but enough to encourage them to keep doing their jobs.

References –

Armstrong, M (2002) Employee Reward. 3^rd ed.

Focus Plus, Customer Service Monitoring Online http://www.focusplus.net.au/pages/faq.htm

[Accessed 10^th May]

Time Analyzer Online http://www.timeanalyzer.com/lib/ioequity.htm [Accessed 10th May]

Performance Management

Performance management is an on-going process where the managers and employee work together to plan, monitor and review an employee’s work’s objectives or goals and overall contribution to the organisation. It starts with a work plan that identifies for the employee what is to be accomplished and how. The plan is followed up with informal, on-going monitoring and feedback on their progress towards the goals in the set plan. At the end of the performance year, the manager and employee meet to summarise the accomplishments of the year.

The purpose of performance management include

-          Organisation Effectiveness – ensure that work plans of the employee are directed towards or support the strategic direction of the organisation. Motivating employees to do their best.

-          Performance Improvement – Establish clear communication between the manager and the employee about what they have accomplished. Also to provide on-going, constructive feedback on performance and to identify area of poor performance. The managers could also provide plans for improving performance, if necessary.

-          Identification of Strengths –To identify the skills and abilities of each employee so that work assignments build on and reflect an employee’s strengths. Also to identify an individual employee for more challenging work.

-          Training and Development – Assist and support staff in achieving their work and career goals by identifying training needs and development opportunities.

-          Administrative Decisions – Support decision-making about promotion, terminations, compensation and rewards.

[At Work Online Accessed 10^th May]

I currently work for JDWetherspoons as a bar assistant and waitress. I was working as a waitress one evening when we had a booking of twelve people. I took their order, took their drinks over, and brought all their food out and deserts on my own. I managed to complete this task as I had training before-hand. I manager was very pleased with my hard work and praised my good work. Because of this, my mangers arranged a appraisal with me to record my performance and my developing needs. It was an opportunity for my managers to view my work content, and look back on what I deal with in a regular basis during my shifts. I feel it was very effective as I got to talk to my managers about my work and ask them any questions that I had. The outputs where that my hard work has been recognised and I was rewarded with a bonus. My managers and team leaders all praised me and gave me more responsibilities.

I feel a good mentor needs to be –

-          Honest – A good mentor will maintain the highest integrity. Information should be given without hype or embellishment. Honesty equal credibility.

-          Commitment – Good mentors recognise that hey have a responsibility and vested interest in the success of other and will be committed to providing support, guidance and the right tools to help the person achieve success.

-          Encouragement – A mentor will provide encouragement and confidence to others in order to help them move past their doubts and fears to accomplish their goals.

-          Accountability – Mentors can provide guidance and support in the accountability to help the person stay on track and maintain focus. They share ideas, provides opportunities and issues challenges for learning that the person may have not seen or recognised.  

-          Constructive Criticism – A mentor must provide criticism in a caring and honest way that is not demeaning. At the same time, a mentor cannot be too proud to learn from others experiences or feel intimidated by their questions.

I feel that being a good mentor does not require any special skills. They are people who have the qualities to be a good role model to others.

While I was at school, I had a mentor who helped me whenever I needed it. We had meeting every Tuesday morning to go through my work for the previous week and what I had achieved. They monitored my progress through my last year at school and helped me to balance my school work with my personal life. I feel if I hadn’t of had my mentor, I wouldn’t of been able to balance my school work with my social life and I would have struggled with my work. Having a mentor helped me to pass all my GCSE’s and I have taken on board all our meetings we had and I still use the advice I was given to help balance out my work at university with my social life.

References –

At Work Online http://atwork.settlement.org/sys/atwork_library_detail.asp?doc_id=1003898&passed_lang=EN [Accessed 10^th May]

April Williams Online http://aprilwilliamsonline.com/what-makes-a-good-mentor/ [Accessed 10^th May]

Selection

Selection is a process of choosing individuals with the essential qualifications to get the job. It seeks to eliminate individuals that are unqualified for the job. The key to employee selection is to choose those who are most likely to perform their jobs with maximum effectiveness and tent to remain with the organisation.

Most organisations use selection to choose best individual who is more suited for the job. Selectors attempt to match individuals to the job requirements on how they preform. They also need to ensure that the candidate fully understand all aspects of the job so that new recruits are not likely to become disillusioned and leave within a short period of time. (Farmer, M and Yellowley, W).

 Wetherspoons use the selection process to recruit the best possible candidates. They use

-          Short Listing from information on CVs and application forms – All candidates who are looking for a job, are required to apply on the JDWetherspoons website. All applications are then sent to Head Office in Scotland. They look over all application forms and decided the best candidates for the job. Once selected, candidates are then invited for a interview in the chosen pub. The benefits of short listing is that managers can see who has more experience in the job they are applying for, and you can pick the best person you think is more suited for the job. The drawbacks are time consuming, look through each application in detail and some information may not be correct.

-          Interviews –Interviews are part of their selection process so the managers can see the person, their personality and get to know them a bit before giving them the job. There are a number of different questions asked. Once the interview has finished, the candidate is then asked to attend a training day to see how they get on. The benefits of using interviews are the interviewer can probe deeper into a answer given by an interviewee, interviews product a high response rate and if the candidate lacks reading skills to answer questionnaires. The drawbacks are it can be very time consuming, the interviewer may be biased and ask closed questions.

-          Role Play on training Day – At the training day, managers ask each candidate to role play out a situation which may happen in the pub. Once the training day has finished, managers then have to decide on whether to give the candidate the job or not.  Benefits of role play are it provides opportunity to practice skills, introduces problem situation dramatically and provides the opportunity for students to appreciate other’s points. The drawbacks are some students may be too self-conscious, some students may feel threatened and it isn’t appropriate for large groups.

[JDWetherspoons Online Accessed 10^th May]

I recently applied for a job at JDWetherspoons, working as a bar assistant and a waitress. I applied on the internet, and attached my CV so head office could see my qualifications, my interests and hobbies, my previous work experiences and a personal statement about me. I was then contacted by the manager of The Bell, asking if I would attend a interview the following day. I was warmly acknowledged by the manager and team leader. I completed the interview with the manager who offered me the job then. I was pleased to accept and I am still currently working for them.

I feel the interview was effective as I was able to get information about how the pub is run and get to know the manager. I also got to talk to the team leader and another staff member who was happy to meet.  

I feel that I would change the way in which candidates are selected as I feel that the organisation aren’t giving all applicants the opportunity to attempt for the job. It does however, save money and time as not all managers have the time to interview all applicants. I feel that JDWetherspoons have a good selection process and have successfully chosen all the right applicants for the job.

References -

Farmer, M and Yellowley, W (2009) People and Organisation. 2^nd ed. Essex:  Pearson Education Limited.

JD Wetherspoons http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/ [Accessed 10^th May 2011]

Recruitment

Recruitment is being able to identify and hire the best –qualified candidate for a job vacancy. There are many recruitment websites available where people can apply for jobs online. This is as many organisations, don’t take in CVs and prefer candidates to apply on their website for on a recruitment site.

Some of these recruitment sites are monster, fish4jobs, jobs today, and prospects. I feel Monsters recruitment site is very easy to use. Once the page has loaded, it comes up with two important boxes – ‘I’m looking for’ and ‘in the uk’ with boxes underneath for the applicant to fill in. It then goes on to show that jobs they have available under the keyword that was put in and in which region they are in.  The website is very accessible for first time users, the layout is very simple and easy to use for all customers. As there are many other recruitment sites, Monster makes their site stand out in a dark purple colour, attracting they eye for the customer. I, personally, would use Monster as a recruitment site if I was to look for a job.

Recruitment campaigns are all about advertising for new recruit to apply. I feel that the British Army use good recruitment campaigns to recruit new soldiers. They have used a number of different campaigns to attract a number of new recruits to join them.

The British Army are currently launching a new recruitment campaign aimed at attracting more ethnic minority and women soldiers, featuring online personality tests and a new TV and radio advertising campaign. As the army are faced with an increasingly competitive job market and frequent bad publicity over pay and conditions, they are getting even more sophisticated and corporate in their approach to recruitment. They have re-branded as one-army recruitment, the latest drive will combine recruiting to both the regular and Territorial Army. Efforts will also be made to attract more women and ethnic minorities by making recruitment more customer-focused. The army insists the drive is not a sign of desperation and that recruitment has been encouraging, with another increase in new soldiers last year, though overall, the armed forces remain undermanned. [BBC Online Accessed 5^th May 2011]

All of the recruitment campaigns that the British army use, I feel are very encouraging and it shows how they are willing to come up with very high responsive recruitment campaigns to get more people to help serve the country.  I feel these campaigns are very interesting and people how join the army are very courageous and giving.

Website for application form to join army - http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/AFCO_Form4-U.pdf. 

Using the internet is a good way to communicate with the local community. There are a few benefits and drawbacks for online recruitment -

-          Benefits

-Cost Effective – For a company to advertise a job vacancy on their own website doesn’t cost them anything. However, putting one on a recruitment site usually costs a lot. This means that if a company where to advertise a vacancy on their website, they save themselves money and they are gaining applications. [What job site online Accessed 5^th May 2011]

-Better chance of success – The success of a vacancy advertisement depends on people looking at a particular advert. Most adverts are on a website for 24hours a day, 7days a week, for as long as the company wish to advertise it for. Candidates can come back to it again and again. [What job site online Accessed 5^th May 2011]

-Quick and reliable – A job vacancy can be put on a recruitment site in the morning, by lunchtime applications will arrive and a candidate is interviewed by the end of the day. This doesn’t happen often but it gives an indication of how quick online recruitment can be. [What job site online Accessed 5^th May 2011]

-Bigger Audience – Research shows that the average age of candidates using sites are around 35years old. Online recruitment is now a standard part of most people’s job hunting no matter what level or age. [What job site online Accessed 5^th May 2011]

-Easy and simple – Most job sites and CV databases are very user-friendly and you don’t need to have an in-depth knowledge of IT to post a vacancy advertisement. All you need is the job description, time and costs. [What job site online Accessed 5^th May 2011]

-          Drawbacks

-Too many candidates – Even though a company can gain a lot of applications from one job vacancy, there’s the fact of dealing with inappropriate, irrelevant candidates. This can waste a lot of time for the company. [What job site online Accessed 5^th May 2011]

-Doesn’t always work – Not every job vacancy that has been posted, will be filled. There will always be difficult-to-fill jobs that can only be filled by recruitment consultants. [What job site online Accessed 5^th May 2011]

Online recruitment offers clear advantages over traditional recruitments methods. At the same time, however, one must be cognisant of the disadvantages inherent in online recruitment if only to avoid the pitfalls that they may produce.

References –

What job site online http://www.whatjobsite.com/Online%20Recruitment:%20Advantages%20and%20disadvantages.htm [Accessed 5^th May 2011]

Farmer, M and Yellowley, W () People and Organisations. 2^nd ed.

BBC Online http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/witn/2007/04/070411_army.shtml [Accessed 5th May 2011]

Monster Online www.monster.co.uk, [Accessed 5^th May 2011]

Equal Opportunities and Diversity

Equal opportunities relates to legislation intended to outlaw discrimination. The government is committed to protect individuals at work against discrimination in employment in the basis of gender, race, age, culture etc. Encouraging a diverse workforce is high on the government’s agenda and the reluctant employer is having their hand forced by statutory obligations. (Mullins, L)

Diversity focuses on the multiplicity of differences among people – on the variety of people as heterogeneous groupings. Individual differences are the basis of diversity. Individual differences and diversity have been recognised as important for effective team performance but in recent years greater attention has been given to the management of diversity.

Kandola and Fullerton define diversity as – ‘the basic concept of managing diversity accepts that the workforce consists of a diverse population of people. The diversity consists of visible and non-visible differences which will include sex, age, background, race, disability, personality and workstyle. It is founded on the premise that harnessing these differences will create a productive environment in which everybody feels valued, where their talents are being fully utilised and in which organisational goals are met’.

The Employment equality (age) regulations 2006 protect people against discrimination at both the younger and older ends of the age spectrum (Farmer, M and Yellowley, W).This legislation has emphasised for employers the need to focus on abilities when making selection decisions and the need to avoid making stereotypical judgements about people’s capabilities according to their age. It is now unlawful to discriminate against older employees, the regulations do allow for a default retirement age of 65. Employees have the right to request to continue working beyond 65 and employers must give serious consideration to such requests but they are not obliged to agree to them. Younger people are interesting in getting jobs so they have money, older people have been working all their lives and want to carry on. Younger people may not bother what the job is and will not take the job itself seriously. However, some younger people get in a job which they are interested in and money is a bonus to them. Older people don’t want to give up their jobs as it’s what their good at and what they are used to.

A stereotype is an overview of a group of people in which identical characteristics are assigned to virtually all member of the group, regardless of actual variations among group members. Stereotyping involves an act of categorization where we look at a person and by physical feature and behaviour we assign that person to a group. Some basic features on which stereotype others are age, race, and gender.  Stereotypes can be positive or negative. For example, we could stereotypes all older people as cranky or we could stereotype them as wise. This meaning that when we stereotype someone, we assume that they will talk, look, and act like all the other members of the category. We could also stereotype younger people as lazy and dumb or we could stereotype them as beginners and intelligent.

I feel organisations can change these attitudes as not all working older people are cranky, but they are wise to inform us of the information that we need. They are helping us and doing their job. Younger people are not all lazy and dumb, most want to get a good education and have a good future. Organisations can encourage both younger and older people by rewarding them with praises, bonus etc. As we work within an organisation our personality and perception change about each other. We adapt each other’s personality and actions so we change as a person who we are.  

All organisations try to give their employees equal opportunities, including, training, flexible working hours, person specification and job description, communication, employee handbook on how employees are expected to behave and support from managers in the organisation. A organisation that goes this is the county council. They recognise that many people live in different areas and have aims to achieve equality. An organisation that takes equal opportunities into account are the ones in which use everyone’s talents and abilities. It is important that the council is a good equal opportunities employer because a diverse workforce reflecting our customers base results in a better informed, improved staff help to retain staff, reducing recruitment costs and a stable workforce achieve high productivity and they are committed. The council ensure all members are treated fairly and afforded equal access to the facilities and support services of the council regardless of gender, age, marital status, disability, race, colour and religion.

References -

Mullins, L. (2010) Management & Organisational behaviour. 9^th ed. Essex: Financial Times Pitman Publishing.

Farmer, M and Yellowley, W (2009) People and Organisations. 2^nd ed. Essex:  Pearson Education Limited.

Webspace Online http://webspace.ship.edu/sfmade/ebook/stereotyping/chap4.html#Implications%20of%20Age-based%20Stereotypes [Accessed 10^th May]

Teamworking

Teams share a common sense of purpose and identity and support each other to achieve goals. (Mullins, L) Each individual has experienced times when working in a great team and other times when struggled along in isolation. The benefits of working in teams are –

-          More creativity leading to more ideas and better results [Goals and Achievements Accessed 10^th May]

-          More opportunity to develop and acquire new skills [Goals and Achievements Accessed 10^th May]

-          The speed in which things can be achieved [Goals and Achievements Accessed 10^th May]

-          A sense of security instead of ‘standing alone’ (Robbins, S)

Within my job role at work, it involves me working with my colleagues every day to ensure that we achieve our daily goals. I do this every day when working. I feel by working in a team, it gives you a sense of support, security, (Robbins, S) developing new skills and more creativity leading to more ideas, and better results. [Goals and Achievements Accessed 10^th May]  

Gersick proposed a Punctured Equilibrium Model of group development in 1988. This suggests that groups develop through the sudden formation, maintenance and sudden revision of a ‘framework for performance’. [Wikipedia Online 10^th May]. This model describes the process through which temporary groups go through with deadlines. There are six phase to this model are -

-       Phase 1 – Group direction

-       Phase 2 – Inertia

-       Phase 3 – Transition at half way through allotted time

-       Phase 4 – Major change

-       Phase 5 – Second phase of inertia

-       Phase 6 – Accelerated activity for last meeting

This theory shows how members in a team work use their time and effort to achieve their goal. As I am always working in teams at work, we go through these stages to achieve our goals. If all our goals are achieved, we are rewarded with bonuses at the end of the month. This encourages all staff to work together and achieve their best.

Tuckman’s (1973) theory identified five stages of group development which where - Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning. All teams formed go through this process. For my first assignment for people in orgs, we went through the processes of

-          Forming – The initial formation of the group and the bringing together of the individuals who identify the purpose of the group (Mullins, L).We were required to select a small group of 3 or 4 people and choose either motivation or culture to base our research on. I chose to work with Belinda and Charlotte. Once that was decided we then went on to decide what topic we were going to study, which was motivation. We started to think of ourselves as a group which helped us to move on to the next stage.

-          Storming – As members of the group get to know each other better, they will put forward their views more openly and forcefully (Mullins, L). We didn’t really go through this stage as we knew each other and as we met to complete the assignment, we got to know each other better by talking and giving our own views and opinions. This did cause some conflict but we were able to identify each other’s strengths and weaknesses which did help.

-          Norming – As conflict and hostility start to be controlled, members of the group will establish guidelines and standards and develop their own norms of acceptable behaviour (Mullins, L). As a group, we all made sure we co-operated so we could plan, and we combined a common set of expectations of correct member behaviour.

-       Performing – When the group has progressed through the three earlier stages of development, it will have created structure and cohesiveness to work effectively as a team (Mullins, L). At this stage of the assignment, we as a team, fully functioned and accepted each other and put together a well written assignment on motivation.  

-       Adjourning – This refers to the adjourning or disbanding of the group because of completion of the task, members leaving the organisation or moving on to other tasks (Mullins, L). Once we completed the assignment and handed it in, we separated from the team and became individuals.

Looking at ‘’The Times Top 100 companies to work for’’ has shown me some great companies where teamwork has been identified as a major contributory factor to their success. One company – Office Angels are a recruitment consultancy company. In their report it shows says how ‘employees are on cloud nine’. The company got its best results in the ‘My Team category’. Teamwork is encouraged in this company working with groups and competing for rewards that include holidays to Dubai, New York and Barbados. Working for Office Angels, 82% employees say working together gives them a buzz and 89% say that team-mates are fun to work with. This shows how the company have a large part in working in teams. Employees are rewarded for innovation as well as sales performance. Staff say they love working for the company and managers are open and honest, as they care about them as individuals. Office Angels believe in retaining and developing staff is one of the organisations main priority.

Another company are NAPP Pharmaceutical Holdings, saying their ‘’staff are a loyal lot’’. Their workforce are excited about where the organisation is going, giving a positive score of 82% and staff believe it makes a positive difference. They love working for the company and are happy with their pay and benefits. Staff feel they are paid fairly for the work they do relative to others within the organisation and report that their salary reflects their responsibility. Managers regularly express their appreciation when a team member does a good job and employees find their training of great personal benefit. All staff members agree that managers listen to staff and they feel inspired by the leadership. This organisation is run on strong values and a top five score of 87% shows that people are proud to work for the company. A score of 79% shows staff feel they make a difference in the firm and they believe they can make a valuable contribution to its success.

References –

Mullins, L. (2010) Management & Organisational behaviour. 9^th ed. Essex: Financial Times Pitman Publishing.owHo

Robbins, S. (2003) Organisational Behaviour. 10^th ed. Essex: Pearson Education International

Goals and Achievements Online http://goalsandachievements.com/teams/6-benefits-of-team-working/  [Accessed 10^th May]

Wikipedia Online http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_development#Gersick.27s_Punctuated_Equilibrium_model [Accessed 10^th May]

The Sunday Times Online http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/best_100_companies/best_100_tables/ [Accessed 15^th February]